First Parish in Needham, Unitarian Universalist Sunday, October 13, Fleeing for Freedom Rev. Katie Lee Crane, preaching

Transcription

1 First Parish in Needham, Unitarian Universalist Sunday, October 13, 2013 Fleeing for Freedom Rev. Katie Lee Crane, preaching OPENING WORDS As-salaamu alaikum. Peace be upon you. That is what Muslims say when they greet one another. The word salām means peace. Some say that the prophet Muhammad urged Muslims to spread the Islamic greeting because spreading salām leads to increasing the love between our hearts. He believed it was the first step toward paradise. Then Muhammad went even further. In a world where people were always fighting with one another, he insisted on fair and kind treatment to all. Someone once asked him this: What in Islam is the best? And he is said to have answered To feed people and to say salām to everyone whether you know them or not. And so, I greet you in peace this morning: Salām. Shalom. Paix, Paz. Pace. Der Friede. Shanti. Taika. PEACE. RESPONSIVE CHALICE LIGHTING Our prophets died for the freedom of faith; We are here in their spirit. We are here to practice and sustain our living tradition; To light a chalice, Claiming for justice The heat and power of fire. In our free faith, we are here, seeking freedom from despair, the freedom to be loved as ourselves, and the freedom to grow beyond imagination. We are here, gathered in the name of all that we find holy. Let us give thanks for the gift of gathering here.

2 2 READING from Islam by Karen Armstrong 1 - Heather K. Janules During the month of Ramadan in 610 C.E., an Arab businessman had an experience that changed the history of the world. Every year [in that month], Muhammad ibn Abdallah used to retire to a cave on the summit of Mount Hira, just outside Mecca, where he prayed, fasted and gave alms to the poor. He had long been worried by what he perceived to be a crisis in Arab society. In recent decades his tribe, the Quraysh [cur āsh], had become rich by trading in the surrounding countries. Mecca had become a thriving mercantile city, but in the aggressive stampede for wealth some of the old tribal values had been lost. Instead of looking after the weaker members of the tribe, as the nomadic code prescribed, the Quraysh were no intent on making money at the expense of the some of the tribe s poorer family groupings or clans. There was also a spiritual restlessness in Mecca and throughout the peninsula. Arabs knew that Judaism and Christianity were more sophisticated than their own pagan traditions. Some had come to believe that the High God of their pantheon, al-lah (whose name simply meant the God ), was the deity worshipped by the Jews and the Christians, but he had sent the Arabs no prophet and no scripture in their own language. Throughout Arabia one tribe fought another, in a murderous cycle of vendetta and countervendetta. It seemed to many that the Arabs were a lost people, exiled from the civilized world and ignored by God himself. But that changed on the night of 17 Ramadan when Muhammad woke to find himself overpowered by a devastating presence, which squeezed him tightly until he heard the first words of what was to become a new Arab scripture pouring from his lips. [Most know the story of the unfolding revelation of the Qur an to Muhammad. At first, he spoke to no one about it. But gradually, he began to preach its message and, over time, gained converts. Many were poor. Significant numbers were women. Most opposed the inequities in Mecca which felt in conflict with the spirit of the old tribal egalitarian ethic. He wasn t teaching the Arabs about a new God; The Qur an, Muhammad reminded his followers, was simply a reminder of the truths everybody knew.] Muhammad did not think he was founding a new religion, but that he was merely bringing the old faith in the [God who had created the world and would judge humanity in the Last Days] to the Arabs, who had never had a prophet before. It was wrong, he insisted, to build a private fortune, but good to share wealth and create a society where the weak and vulnerable were treated with respect. If the Quraysh did not mend their ways, their society would collapse because they were violating the fundamental laws of existence. The new sect would be called islam (surrender); a muslim was a man or a woman who had made this submission of their entire being to Allah and the demand that human beings behave to one another with justice, equity and compassion. 1 Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, New York: Modern Library Paperback Edition, 2002.

3 3 READING from Islam by Karen Armstrong 2 All violence was forbidden in Mecca and the surrounding countryside at all times. This had been a key factor in the commercial success of the Quraysh [cur āsh], since it enabled Arabs to trade there without fearing the reprisals of vendetta warfare. [As Mohammed preached a return to the core values of his tribal culture] he acquired a small following; eventually 70 families converted to Islam. At first the most powerful men in Mecca ignored the Muslims, but by 616 they had become extremely angry with Muhammad. They were particularly incensed [because these teachings] struck at the heart of their cut-throat capitalism. Relations deteriorated sharply. [The Quraysh] imposed a boycott forbidding their clan members to marry or trade with Muslims. [This included a ban on food.] The ban lasted for two years; it may have been responsible for the death of Muhammad s wife and it certain ruined some of the Muslims financially. Slaves who had converted to Islam were tied up, and left to burn in the blazing sun. [Then] Muhammad s uncle and protector died Without a protector who would avenge his death, one could be killed with impunity. Muhammad had great difficulty finding a Meccan chieftain who would become his patron. Muhammad was therefore willing to listen to a delegation of chiefs from Yathrib [yath rib], a settlement 250 miles north of Mecca. A number of tribes had abandoned their nomadic way of life and settled there. But after centuries of warfare found it impossible to live together peacefully. The whole settlement was caught up in one deadly feud after another. The envoys who approached Muhammad converted to Islam and made a pledge to Muhammad; each vowed they would not fight each other, and would defend each other from common enemies. In 622, Muslim families slipped away, one by one, and made the migration (hijra) [heej rah] to Yathrib. Muhammand was almost assassinated before he was able to escape. READING Just Looking for Trouble by Hafiz 3 Shams-ud-din Muhammad known to us as the 14 th century Persian poet, Hafiz was a famous Sufi master. I once had a student Who would sit alone in his house at night Shivering with worries And fears, And, come morning, 2 Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, New York: Modern Library Paperback Edition, Daniel Ladinsky, trans., The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master, New York: Penguin, 1999, p 82.

4 4 He would often look as though He had been raped By a ghost. Then one day my pity Crafted for him a knife From my own divine sword. Since then, I have become very proud Of this student. For now, come night, Not only has he lost all his fear, Now he goes out Just looking for Trouble. SPOKEN MEDITATION Today s meditation is from my colleague, the Rev. Beverly Waring who serves the UU congregation in Hopedale, Massachusetts. What is the relationship between peace and violence? Is peace found when a war ends? Has the history of war proven otherwise that war only incites further problems down the road? Do you believe as some do that violence in response to violence can only lead to further violence? What can we learn from the three major religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam? Jesus said Blessed are the peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9) He did not say peace-lovers or even peacekeepers he said peacemakers. But I wonder if Jesus would have become such an important symbol of Christianity if not for his violent death? In the Hebrew Bible, time and again, the Israelites are commanded to act with violence. If accounts are to be believed, among many other atrocities, Joshua exterminated the Canaanites and destroyed the cities of Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. (Joshua: 1-24) I wonder did the path to the Promised Land have to be so violent?

5 5 The religion of Islam is essentially a religion of peace, for Mohammed was a lover of peace and non-violence. Yet, Muhammed was forced to flee from Mecca to Medina when he learned that there was a plan to take his take his life. At the same time Muhammed was saying: Shall I not inform you of a better act than fasting, alms, and prayers? Making peace between one another, he was also making pacts with others to fight mutual enemies. Prophet of peace? Or Messenger of power? What can we learn from a president who one week after escalating a war is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace? What is the message from a commander in chief who says: We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. Is it only in the midst of war that we can envision peace? Can a peacemaker only start from a place of violence? SILENT MEDITATION MUSICAL INTERLUDE How Lovely Are the Messengers Felix Mendelssohn from St. Paul Oratorio, Op. 36 How lovely are the messengers that preach us the gospel of peace. To all the nations is gone forth the sound of their words, throughout the lands their glad tidings SERMON Fleeing for Freedom Rev. Katie Lee Crane Today is the beginning of the Hajj the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford to make it. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to Saudi Arabia to participate in this ritual that is one of Islam s five pillars of faith. For five days they pray together and follow certain rituals including circling the Kaaba seven times and visiting other sites of historical and religious importance. The Kaaba is a large stone structure, known as the sacred house; it sits at the heart of al Masjid al Haram (Holy Mosque). The annual Hajj pilgrimage is one of the world s largest gatherings; Muslims from all over the world will gather for five days to pray as one community, celebrating their history and giving thanks for blessings. Week after week, it seems, we see Muslims from many parts of the world in conflict, sometimes with other Muslims. Once a year, we see photos of pilgrims, dressed in white, fulfilling their holy obligation. I have often found it difficult to reconcile these different images, particularly since I have little knowledge of their faith tradition.

6 6 This year, given the coincidence of the timing, I decided to take this opportunity to educate myself, and perhaps some of you, about the Islamic religion s origins and primary beliefs. In the year 622 C.E. during the Hajj (remember, this ancient practice predates the Muslim religion), Muhammad asked the Muslims in Mecca all of whom were under constant threat of torture or death to make a hijra (migration) with him to Yathrib. It was a life-threatening experiment. To ask people to cut themselves off from their kin and accept the protection of strangers was unheard of. In Arabia, where one s tribe was the most sacred value of all, to leave was treasonous; to stay was perilous. Yet, some 70 Muslim families migrated to Yathrib, later to become known as Medina. They were fugitives to their own people and outsiders to the new ones. For Muslims, it is this choice to flee for freedom that marks the beginning of the Muslim era. The little band of Muslim families who lived in a violent tribal culture was fleeing for freedom. In spite of overwhelming risks, they desired only the right to believe and worship according to their own traditions. They, too, wanted only to live and worship in peace. So that s where it started, the kernel of an idea for today s sermon. Where to go with it was less obvious. So that s where it started, the kernel of my idea for today s sermon. Where to go with it was less obvious. Should I draw the obvious parallels I see between our own contemporary circumstances and those of these ancient people facing a crisis in their society because of what Karen Armstrong calls a stampede for wealth and cut-throat capitalism? Theirs was a formerly egalitarian society that became so intent on making money that it lost sight of and violated basic laws of human rights. Muhammad was their prophet in Arabic, he was called nadir, which means one who warns. He was a prophet who named injustices and preached instead the duty to feed the hungry, serve the poor, and live by an ethic of justice, equity and compassion. As I look at our own broken and imbalanced economic system I have to ask: who among us will name the injustice, feed the hungry, serve the poor? Who among us will be the one who warns of the dangers of greed? Some are valiantly trying. Or, perhaps, I should instead focus another parallel I notice between the 21 st century world and the 7 th century world, each battered by a murderous cycle of violence, where every vendetta leads to a counter vendetta? A world where feuds not only lead to alienation among those who disagree, unequal distribution of wealth, and boycotts on essentials like food and water, but also, of course, to deadly force. Then I would have to address Muhammad s original belief that it is necessary to fight our way to peace. Really? Fight our way to peace? Isn t that an oxymoron? Maybe, but just weeks ago President Obama asked this country and its leaders to consider a military strike against the Saudi government for its use of chemical weapons against its own people. May questioned the wisdom of this strategy.

7 7 Muhammad himself gave us the question we must ponder today: Must we fight our way to peace? Is there no other way to freedom? Muhammad wrestled with these questions. After the hijra (flight for freedom), the small confederacy of tribes was battered by and battered their enemies. After two years of this (and, admittedly, after some decisive victories), Muhammad chose to abandon the jihad and begin a peace offensive, insisting on only peaceful responses in the face of violence. It was shaky business. Eventually, though, the warring tribes signed a treaty (many, reluctantly). Eight years later, during the Hajj in 630, Muhammad marched into Mecca (serious enemy territory) with 10,000 men and no blood was shed. During the next two years almost all the tribes of Arabia had joined the confederacy and many had converted to Islam. Briefly, there was peace in war-torn Arabia. You could say Muhammad s strategy succeeded, albeit for only about two years. The question then is: can nonviolence be sustained? President Obama said war is sometimes necessary, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He acknowledged that Martin Luther King, Jr., a man to whom Obama owes much, made his life s work a testimony to the moral force of nonviolence. But Obama claims that a nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler s armies. Negotiations have not convinced Al Qaeda s leaders to lay down their arms. To say force is sometimes necessary, he continued, is a recognition that evil exists in the world, that history repeatedly warms us of the imperfections of human nature and the limits of reason. Just a few weeks ago, the President asked the nation s leaders and the American people to back a punitive air strike aimed at destroying chemical weapons used by Bashire al-assad s Syrian regime to kill his own people. I find the paradoxes painful. The poem I read earlier was a paradox to me. When I first read it, I took it literally. A student is paralyzed by fear. The teacher takes pity, fashions him a knife from his own divine sword and gives it to the fear-filled student. Suddenly, the student feels free of fear empowered even to go out in the dark of night and look for trouble. I read it two or three times, still uncomfortable with what I perceived to be its message. I linked the poem to how I imagine many young Muslims fired up with zeal for their faith strap a bomb on their backs and detonate it in a crowded marketplace. I found the poem disturbing. But that literal interpretation just didn t make sense, knowing what I do of the poet, Hafiz. He is a great Sufi teacher. A mystic. A poet whose body of work is rooted in the human need for companionship, and in the soul s innate desire to surrender to the experience of the holy. His poems intentionally speak on many levels simultaneously. Why would this poet be writing about empowering a fear-filled student with a weapon? What was I missing? In searching further, I found another interpretation (and was reminded, too, that I am reading a translation, not the original poem). Those more familiar with the poet s work suggested I might see it like this: A spiritual teacher sees that his student is filled with fear. The teacher gives the

8 8 student a means to conquer his fear; something that has a divine origin. Infused with this transmission of holiness from his teacher, the student becomes courageous enough to stir up the world. Maybe the student becomes a prophet, one who warns that violence and injustice cannot be tolerated? Perhaps, the once fearful student is transformed into a messenger of peace? Puzzling over the poem helped me to realize how I am grappling with my own two very different interpretations of Islam. One is dominated by an image of the sword; this image I see daily in the news. The other offers a glimmer of understanding that, at its core, Islam is a religion of peace and justice. The first is about fear. The second is about courage and compassion. Must we be empowered only by the sword? Is there no other way to freedom? Is it possible to be emboldened by the spirit, to be impassioned by courage, to be led by compassion? If some of us are willing to die waging war, are some of us willing to die waging peace? Are the only choices to flee for freedom or fight for freedom? This is one of the most complex dilemmas in our world and it was the same in Moses world, in Jesus world, and in Muhammad s world. There may be no answer. Accept our own. How will we chose to live in a violent and inequitable world in peace? How will we live the spiritual values we ve been taught as Unitarian Universalists? Inherent worth. Interconnectedness. Justice, equity and compassion. A global community that is just, that is free, that knows peace. A local woman from Medford said what I feel: I [don t want to] go to war. I want to go to peace, and education. Is it possible? Does possible really matter? I choose to go out and make a little trouble for justice. I choose to surrender to peace. I don t mean give up. I don t mean give in. I mean to give over to peace, to let it infuse my being and all I do. For me, there is no other option. CLOSING WORDS Let s go out and make a little trouble for peace. Salām. Shalom. Paix, Paz. Pace. Der Friede. Shanti. Taika. PEACE.